https://ethanwiner.com/oxymoron.html
An oxymoron is a contradictory word pair. George Carlin popularized Military Intelligence and Jumbo Shrimp in his stand-up comedy act, along with "Drive on the Parkway, Park in the Driveway," but there are many others. Following are all the oxymorons I've collected or devised myself, though admittedly some are not true oxymorons but just contradictory word pairs, like Truck Fa rm.
Edit - The word oxymoron is itself a subtle oxymoron. Oxy from Greek oxus meaning ‘sharp’. Moron meaning 'dull'.
Here are a few of my favorites from the emormous list at this site.
Act Naturally
Awfully Good
Bitter Sweet
Boneless Ribs
Civil Disobedience
Congressional Ethics
Damaged Goods
Elementary Calculus
Front End
Good Grief
Hollow Point
Invisible Ink
Jumbo Shrimp
Legally Drunk
Much Less
Near Miss
Old News
Partial Victory
Recent History
Short Distance
Terribly Nice
Unbiased Opinion
Victimless Crime
White Chocolate
Young Adult
Thanks Carl,
Wonderful stuff!
After reading your post, I watched some George Carlin shows.
I think he was the best stand up comic in history. His material and delivery were "in a league of their own"............the type of expression that he would often use to spin an hilarious meaning to.
He would probably say something like(I'm making this up):
People often use this expression:
"He was in a league of his own!"
What the F does that mean???
Was he a baseball player??
If you're the only one in the league, how the hell do you play baseball? I thought you needed 9 players on a team and 9 players on the other team to play baseball!
If you're the only one in the league, I guess that means that you always finish in first place and win the championship at the end of the season...................but then you also always finish in last place.
You're always the best player...........and the worst player.
Do you win all of your games and lose all your games because you are playing only you?
Do you have a strategy before each game designed to beat yourself?
Are there coaches and umpires in this league? If there are, where the hell do you get a coach and umpires that want to apply their professional skills working in a league that has just one guy??
What sort of spectators would pay to come watch a one person league play baseball?
Actually, you might get a hell of a lot of people that would pay good money to be entertained by a guy that can play all the positions on a baseball team for both sides at the same time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUG0IMjfxCE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, actor, author, and social critic. He was known for his black comedy and reflections on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. He and his "seven dirty words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a 5–4 decision affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. Widely regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comics of all time, Carlin was dubbed by one newspaper to be "the dean of counterculture comedians"
Some people have no idea what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.
Language is a tool for concealing the truth. If we could read each other's minds, this would be a horror show.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
A person of good intelligence and of sensitivity cannot exist in this society very long without having some anger about the inequality - and it's not just a bleeding-heart, knee-jerk, liberal kind of a thing - it is just a normal human reaction to a nonsensical set of values where we have cinnamon flavored dental floss and there are people sleeping in the street.
George Carlin